Deletion of Valley Line From State List Urged : Transit: MTA recommends replacing the subway on funding priority roster with a dozen other transportation projects.

Citing revenue shortages and construction delays, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted Wednesday to recommend that a San Fernando Valley rail line be removed from a list of state funding priorities and replaced with a dozen other projects from Pasadena to Marina del Rey.

The board did, however, set aside $51 million in local transportation money to begin engineering studies on the Valley line to avoid delaying the start of construction, planned for 2003.

The only “no” vote on recommending the removal came from Bob Abernethy, an alternate MTA member representing Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district includes a large portion of the Valley.

After the vote, Yaroslavsky said he opposes the decision to take the project off the state funding list because he fears that it may not be restored in the future or that future transit money may not be available to build the line.

But MTA staff members and others, including Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, said they are trying to obtain a guarantee from state transit officials that the project will be added to the list in 1998 and will be built on schedule.

Despite Yaroslavsky’s concerns, MTA staffers said state officials have predicted an increase in transportation money in 1998 because of an improvement in the economy. Much of the MTA transit money comes from two half-cent sales tax increases approved by voters.

MTA officials also said the state is expected to finish funding a backlog of transit projects and should have additional money for new projects such as the Valley line.

As proposed, the $2.2-billion Valley subway would connect with the Metro Red Line subway in North Hollywood and end in Woodland Hills, running parallel to Burbank and Chandler boulevards. The project has been sought for years as a partial solution to impending traffic gridlock.

The state requires that the list, known as the State Transportation Improvement Program, include only projects on which construction can start within seven years. State officials warned the MTA, which put the Valley line on the list last year, of that requirement two months ago.

Because the MTA does not have its share of the necessary funding to begin building the Valley line before 2003, the MTA staff recommended that it be replaced on the list with 12 projects that can be built within the next seven years.

Those projects include a light rail line between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, the subway from Hollywood to North Hollywood, several carpool lanes and an access route to the proposed Marina del Rey studio of DreamWorks SKG, formed by media giants Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and other transit activists decried the MTA vote, saying the $51 million set aside for the Valley engineering studies should be used to buy more buses.

Constance Rice, an attorney representing a bus riders group suing the MTA to force more spending on buses, said the decision “will be Exhibit A in how you run a two-tier transportation system.”

Plans for a Valley line have been in the works for nearly 20 years. In 1990, MTA officials began studying an alternative to the subway: a monorail along the freeway median from Universal City to Woodland Hills.

The debate over the two proposals split the Valley into feuding factions until the MTA reaffirmed its support for the subway line along the so-called Burbank-Chandler route last year.

Supporters and MTA staff have conceded that the latest threat to the project has come partly from delays because of squabbling among Valley residents and lawmakers over the line’s route and design.

Nonetheless, during the debate Wednesday, MTA member Nick Patsaouras asked that the agency eliminate plans to build the Valley line below ground and instead study only surface lines. No other MTA members supported that proposal.

Riordan described Patsaouras’ measure as “a legitimate thing to go into” but said it should be debated at another time.

Despite the vote Wednesday, Riordan reiterated his support for an east-west mass transit line in the Valley that is “cost-effective, environmentally sound and which has community support.” Citing costs, Riordan said Tuesday, “I don’t think we will ever build a subway beyond North Hollywood.”

But at the MTA meeting Wednesday, Riordan said his remarks had been “mischaracterized.” There are “not enough dollars in the 1998 state funding to pay for the east-west Valley line as currently envisioned,” he said.

The mayor said other alternatives, such as a surface light-rail system, should be considered. But he also said a subway is “one possible solution.”

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